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The Liber Amicus: Studies in Horace Sermones I

Wright, Mark B
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406208303

Abstract Details

2014, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Greek and Latin.
This dissertation offers a reading of Horace's first book of Satires that takes account of the moral content within to offer a more fulfilling reading--one that acknowledges the genius of Horace's aesthetic principles and achievement but that pays attention to the stated function of Horace's satiric text: moral and ethical improvement. My analysis of the pragmatics of Horace's libellus reveals a program of moral (self)-pedagogy, where Horace, his audience and even today's modern reader, can learn from the mistakes and foibles of others by using them as exempla, by careful self-reflection of one's own mistakes and the use of oneself as an exempla, and the moral correction and education that friends can offer one another freely through sodality and conversation. In this way Horace is able to reconcile the ideas of friendship and the nominally invective and critical discourse of satire. Rather than an analysis of old Horatian moral saws like the aurea mediocritas or "nothing in excess", my analysis reveals a moral process at work, one that is ever active, that acknowledges that everyone has imperfections and works to strive for moral improvement. In my first chapter I situate my work into two contexts--first the modern critical apparatus of scholarship on Horace's satires and secondly within the intellectual and historical currents of Horace's own time, particularly with attention to the important contemporary discussion of friendship offered by Cicero's Laelius de Amicitia. Next I start with the most overtly moralizing texts in the libellus, the first three so called "diatribe" satires and show how they set up issues and themes in the rest of the poetic book. In chapter 2 I give a detailed reading of satire 1.4, widely acknowledged as the first open program satire amongst Horace's poems. I show how Horace gives us an ethical program that uses and interacts with several important Roman institutions--the mos maiorum and the paternal education it entails in Roman tradition, satire and friendship. In chapter 3 I turn to the subsequent two satires, 1.5 and 1.6. I use 1.5 to demonstrate the different kinds of friendship Horace imagines in his poetic world--literary friendship, friendship towards oneself and courtier friendship. In 1.6 I show how Horace can maintain a truly equal and free friendship with Maecenas, showing how Horace's criticism of Maecenas own snobbery (in this case against Horace's father), demonstrates that Horace, at least in one important way, portrayed his friendship with Maecenas as one of equals rather than courtier and patron. In chapter 4 I turn to satire 1.7, a short counterblast ending in a pun. While a poem focused on odium would seem strange in a book about amicitia, I show how 1.7 forms a potent counter example to the discussions of friendship and ethics in the previous poems. Finally in my concluding chapter, I show how the last two poems fit into Horace's ethical program.
William Batstone (Advisor)
264 p.
Ancient History; Ancient Languages; Classical Studies; Literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wright, M. B. (2014). The Liber Amicus: Studies in Horace Sermones I [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406208303

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wright, Mark. The Liber Amicus: Studies in Horace Sermones I. 2014. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406208303.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wright, Mark. "The Liber Amicus: Studies in Horace Sermones I." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1406208303

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1406208303
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